May 12, 2011

Beware! Latest Facebook virus…



Edit: we just heard from someone inside Facebook: they were already working on the issue, and expect to have it fixed within an hour. Awesome!

If you see this, do not click the link! It will take advantage of a security flaw in Facebook to load an external JavaScript file and spam all of your friends. It appears that the goal of the virus authors is simply to get traffic to an add-filled webpage.

We filed a bug report to let Facebook know about this, and they will almost certainly fix it soon. Until then, the best way to keep yourself safe from this virus and others like it is to be *extremely* careful about clicking on links under wall posts.

If you’ve got any questions, leave a comment and let us know!

February 26, 2011

15 seconds to your iframe tab

When I heard that Facebook was going to deprecate the Static FBML app, my first thought was disappointment– that app made it so easy to add tabs to a page. My second reaction was that it would be simple to code up a replacement, and that hosting on Amazon S3 is dirt cheap so I could afford to do it.

Without further ado, here is (to my knowledge) the simplest way to add an iframe tab to your page:

Step 1:

Add the Static HTML app to your page — it’s free.

Step 2: there is no step 2.

Your page now has an iframe tab for you to customize however you want. (Assuming you followed step 1 ; ).

Was that it?!

Yep, that was it! You can edit your iframe by going to the new tab labeled “Welcome” on your page. This is what you’ll see:

Static HTML app screenshot

Let me know how this works for you!

I just made this app, so let me know what you think of it! I’ll respond to any questions you have, and fix any bugs you find. I’m friendly, too, I swear! So leave a comment here, message me on twitter (@jasonpadvorac), or email me at jpadvo@gmail.com.

Cheers!

- Jason

Saying goodbye to an old friend: FBML

The first time I made a custom tab on Facebook, it felt so amazing. You can build a website inside Facebook? How cool is that!

And it was really simple. All you had to do was add a single app to your page, and it gave you a text box. You wrote your markup into the text box, and it magically appeared on your page.

The real kicker was that with a couple tags, you could leverage what seemed like infinite power to connect with a person. You could use their name, create like and share buttons, anything you wanted! Well, not really, but it felt that way at first blush.

But alas, FBML will be no longer.

I’m excited about new things that can be done with iFrame tabs, but I’ll always be a bit nostalgic for the good old days.